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Health & Safety Update

February 2018 - Issue 102

February 2018 has seen a large number of cases highlighting the heavy financial consequences that flow from health and safety breaches, with fines ranging from £3,000 to £500,000. Below are some examples of the significant fines that can be attached to Health and Safety breaches.

Alandale Plant & Scaffolding Ltd – fined £160,000

Section 3 of the Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 outlines general duties of employers and the self employed to persons other than their employees. Under section 3(1) the employer has a duty to conduct his work in a way that “persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety”.

Alandale Plant & Scaffolding Ltd was fined £160,000 for breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 when a scaffolding clip fell off scaffolding at a height of approximately 60 metres. The clip hit a pedestrian walking on the street below and caused injury to their head and face, including cuts, a broken nose and a bruised skull.

The company pleaded guilty to breach of section 3(1) as although it had identified control measures in its risk assessment, it had failed to carry them out. Alandale was consequently fined £160,000 and received an order to pay £7,059.08 for prosecution costs.

MV Kelly Limited – fined £500,000

A worker was injured when working on a construction site and walking along a haul road. The worker was hit by a tipper truck when trying to attract the attention of a vehicle in another area of the site. The worker was severely injured and over 12 months after the accident had to have his right leg amputated.

Regulation 27(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 specifies that a “construction site must be organised in such a way that, so far as is reasonable practicable, pedestrians and vehicles can move without risks to health and safety”. In this instance many trucks were being directed around the site by various ground workers and it was found that there were not enough protected walkways and that there was no control over access to the site.

MV Kelly subsequently pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 27(1) and faced a fine of £500,000 in addition to the £30,000 expense as a result of an order for costs.

An industrial roof was being installed over a pre-existing asbestos cement roof by Advanced Industrial Roofing and Cladding Solutions Limited and a sub-contractor. An employee suffered serious injuries when they stepped backwards onto the adjacent unit and fell through a roof light.

Advanced Industrial Roofing pleaded guilty to breaching regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005, which seeks to mitigate risks from heights and provides for every employer to “take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so as far as is reasonable practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury”. The sub-contractor also pleaded guilty to breaching regulation 15(2) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, which states a “contractor must plan, manage and monitor construction work carried out either by the contractor or by workers under the contractor’s control, to ensure that, so far as is reasonable practicable, it is carried out without risks to heath and safety”. Between them they were fined a total of £9,500 and ordered to pay prosecution costs totalling £6,278.